Grouping advertisement subavails

ABSTRACT

Method and system for creating one or more advertising avail sections (subavails) and thereupon aggregating the subavails to form one or more groups of subavails. The advertisement opportunities (avails) may be divided into sections (subavails) with each section being directed at a particular target audience (group). The subavails are then aggregated into one or more groups of subavails so that the groups of subavails can be sold to the advertisers. The grouping of subavails is generally based on a correlation wherein the subavails are characterized based on one or more characteristics. The groups of subavails are formed based on one or more shared characteristics. The advertiser has an option to buy a group of subavails (rather than an avail in prior art), whereby the advertiser may reach a targeted group of an audience.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/337,854 (now U.S. Pat. No. 8,677,401), filed Dec. 27, 2011, entitledGrouping Advertisement Subavails, which is continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/024,496 (now U.S. Pat. No. 8,087,045), filedFeb. 1, 2008, entitled Grouping Advertisement Subavails, which is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/750,812 (now U.S.Pat. No. 7,331,057), filed Dec. 28, 2000, entitled GroupingAdvertisement Subavails, the entire disclosures of which areincorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Advertising plays an important role in the broadcast programmingindustry. The costs of programming are either subsidized byadvertisements or paid for entirely by advertisements, as in the case ofover-the-air broadcasting. Furthermore, monthly cable subscription canbe affected by the revenues from advertisements.

The technology for advertisement insertion has been around for quitesome time. Primarily, network broadcasters, both local and national,divide their airtime into two categories. First, there is “programming,”reserved for informational broadcasting and entertainment. Secondly,“avails” are reserved for advertising. These advertising avails mayaccount for as much as 20-25% of total transmitting time. Usually, theseavails are divided into smaller intervals of 15, 30, up to 60 seconds.

In many prior art systems, the insertion of advertisements in avails ishandled by a combination of cue-tone detectors, switching equipment andtape players, which hold the advertising material. Upon receipt of thecue tones, an insertion controller automatically turns on a tape playercontaining the advertisement. Switching equipment then switches thesystem output from the video and audio signals received from theprogramming source to the output of the tape player. The tape playerremains on for the duration of the advertising, after which theinsertion controller causes the switching equipment to switch back tothe video and audio channels of the programming source. When switched,these successive program and advertising segments usually feed to aradio-frequency (RF) modulator for delivery to the subscribers.

Many subscriber television systems, such as cable television, arecurrently being converted to digital equipment. These new digitalsystems compress the advertising data, e.g., using Motion PictureExperts Group 2 (MPEG 2) compression, store the compression data as adigital file on a large disk drive (or several drives), and then, uponreceipt of the cue tone, spool (“play”) the file off of the drive to adecoder. The video and accompanying audio data are decompressed back toa standard video and audio, and switched into the video/audio feed ofthe RF modulator for delivery to the subscriber. This comprises theinsertion of digitally stored material into an analog stream.

Alternatively, the video delivery system may be entirely digital, inwhich case the ads may be spooled from the drive and inserted directlyinto a digital programming stream, where decoding takes place at theset-top box in the subscriber residence. This is the case fordigital-into-digital insertion.

A prior art (present model) of providing advertisements along withactual programming is based on linked sponsorship. In the linkedsponsorship model, the advertisements are inserted into the actualprogramming based on the demographic information related to theviewer/subscribers. However, the ability to transmit informationdigitally allows programming and advertisements to be transported fromvarious geographic locations and arranged in a fashion which permits anoptimized program to be presented to a subscriber.

The transition to the digital age permits a migration to new methods ofadvertising based on what is termed orthogonal sponsorship. Inorthogonal sponsorship, the advertisements are targeted at subscribersbased on a determination that the advertisement will be of interest tothe subscriber and that the subscriber is likely to ultimately purchasethe product or service being advertised.

In addition, with the advent of digital technology, the migration todigital media including digital video will allow for the targeting ofadvertisements, and in particular, will allow for the targeting ofadvertisements down to the individual level. Although such granularityallows for the very precise targeting of advertisements, management andin particular the sales of advertisements, can be very difficult due tothe sheer number of advertising opportunities which are created in thedigital environment.

As an example, in targeted television advertising it is possible todeliver advertisements to small geographic groups over traditionalHybrid Fiberoptic Coaxial (HFC) systems, and to individual homes inSwitched Digital Video (SDV) systems. In SDV systems, algorithms havebeen developed to aggregate homes into groups which allow for targetingto groups, rather than to individual homes. Nevertheless, the increasedinventory of avails is difficult to manage and sell. What is needed is amethod and system for creating groups of avail sections which aremanageable.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is a method and system for creating one or moreadvertising avail sections (subavails) and thereupon aggregating thesubavails to form one or more groups of subavails.

In accordance with the principles of the present invention, theadvertisement opportunities (avails) may be divided into sections(subavails) with each subavail being directed at a particular targetaudience (group). The subavails are then aggregated into one or moregroups of subavails so that the groups of subavails can be sold to theadvertisers. The grouping of subavails is generally based on acorrelation, wherein the subavails are characterized based on one ormore characteristics. The groups of subavails are formed based on one ormore shared characteristics. The advertiser has an option to buy a groupof subavails (rather than an avail in prior art), whereby the advertisermay reach a targeted group of an audience.

It is to be noted that subavails are based on virtual partitions, i.e.,an avail need not be partitioned/spliced to create subavails. Instead,the subavails may only refer to various advertisement opportunities indifferent presentation streams. For example, if an ESPN program streamis split into n streams labeled as ESPN1, ESPN2, ESPN3-ESPNn (each ESPNstream targeted at a subgroup of subscribers), then the subavail mayonly refer to an advertisement opportunity in one of the ESPN1,ESPN2-ESPNn streams, wherein an avail refers to an advertisementopportunity to all streams of ESPN.

In the present invention, one or more subavails across a plurality ofchannels may be grouped to form a particular target group. For example,a target group A may appear in avails which span a number of channels.In one embodiment of the invention, the avail sections are aggregatedacross channels to form a group of cross-networked subavails. Theadvantage of the grouped cross-network subavail group is that it allowsthe buyer to reach the same number of viewers by purchasing a singleavail, but with targeting the advertisement. The advertiser can make asingle purchase rather than having to buy a number of subavails.

In an alternate embodiment, one or more groups of time sequencesubavails are formed by taking subavails over a period of time on asingle channel. As in the previous embodiment, the group of timesequence subavails can be readily sold because it allows the buyer toreach a suitable number of subscribers and allows the purchase of agroup of subavails (comprising many subavails) rather than the purchaseof a few avails or the purchase of many subavails.

In the present invention, the subavails may be described in terms of“addressable units.” in addition to demographic characteristics, theaddressable unit will have “subscriber size,” e.g., one household forSDV, 125-150 households in cable nodes. In the case of cable nodes, theaddressable unit has a statistical distribution of each demographicfactor. The demographic factors ma be basic, e.g., age, sex, householdincome, etc., or value-added, such as clusters or other third partygroupings familiar to the media buyer.

An advertisement management system (AMS) is further described in thepresent invention to define how the advertising avails are broken intoaddressable units and offered to the media buyer and delivered tosubscribers.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and form a part ofthe specification, illustrate the embodiments of the present invention,and together with the description, serve to explain the principles ofthe present invention.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 illustrates an advertisement management system (AMS), inaccordance with the embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of the invention in which the availsections are aggregated across channels to form a grouped cross-networksubavail;

FIG. 3 illustrates another embodiment of the invention in which groupedtime sequence avails are formed by taking subavails over a period oftime on a single channel; and

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary case wherein the Avail Sales/Auctioningmodule of an AMS announces the avail opportunities to variousadvertisers and ad sources.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

In describing a preferred embodiment of the invention illustrated in thedrawings, specific terminology will be used for the sake of clarity.However, the invention is not intended to be limited to the specificterms so selected, and it is to be understood that each specific termincludes all technical equivalents which operate in a similar manner toaccomplish a similar purpose. These and other features and objects ofthe present invention will be understood more fully from the followingdetailed description of the preferred embodiments, which should be readin light of the accompanying drawings.

With reference to the drawings, in general, and FIGS. 1 through 4 inparticular, the apparatus of the present invention is disclosed.

Generally, an advertisement management system (AMS) in accordance withthe principles of the present invention, consists of one or moresubsystems which allow for the characterization of an advertisement(ad), the determination of advertising opportunities (avails), thecharacterization of a subscriber, the creation of subavails, thecorrelation and aggregation of different subavails to form one or moregroups of subavails and the sale of one or more groups of subavails.

As illustrated in FIG. 1, the AMS 100 comprises an ad characterizationmodule 102, an avail opportunities recognition module 104, a subavailgeneration module 106, a subscriber characterization module 108, acorrelation module 110, and a subavail aggregation module 112. The AMS100 is also configured to communicate to an avail sales/auctioningmodule 114, and to an ad insertion module (not shown). It should benoted that the ad insertion module may be located within the AMS 100 ormay be located externally. Furthermore, the modules of the AMS 100interact with an advertiser 120, a content provider 122, an operator124, a subscriber 126, and a profiler 128.

The ad characterization module 102 allows one or more advertisers 120 toenter key characterization data regarding the ad and the target market.The avail opportunities module 104 allows the contentproviders/producers of program streams 122 to indicate various availsthat are available in the programming stream, their basiccharacteristics, and the extent to which they can be substituted. Thesubavail generation module 106 permits the content providers 122 todescribe the available advertising opportunities (“avails”) into aplurality of sections (subavails) wherein each subavail is beingdirected at a particular target audience (group).

The subscriber characterization module 108 allows for the collection ofsubscriber data. The subscriber data can be collected from a variety ofsources including private databases external to the system or publicdatabases that contain information relevant to the subscriber 126.

With respect to private data, the subscriber 126 has generally paid forthe access to this data, e.g., the subscriber 126 may receive productpromotions or other offers. The subscriber 126 is also provided accessto his private data. The subscriber 126 may have access to his privatedata to assure the integrity of the data, e.g., the data accuratelyreflects his interests and lifestyle.

The subscriber data may be based on an individual subscriber, a group ofsubscribers, a household or a group of households. Techniques evolvingthe coarse discrimination of subscribers and grouping of subscribersinto large groups can be used to associate a serving area with aparticular ad. For example, in a cable television system, it may bedetermined that a group of subscribers 126 associated with a particularoptical distribution node, speak a particular language. This knowledgemay then be used to direct a particular set of ads to that node. As anexample, a node associated with Spanish-speaking subscribers can haveads in Spanish inserted in the programming streams.

The specific targeting can also be based on public information, such asmedian home prices or starter borne prices. These prices can be furtherassociated with zip codes. The publicly available data may be subscriberspecific. For example, tax assessment data may be used as a factor indetermining the applicability of an ad. In the case of tax assessmentdata, the subscriber's 126 name, address and tax parcel number are knownalong with an assessed value of the property. The assessed value of theproperty can be used to determine an approximate income range for thefamily and thus specifically target ads.

Publicly available data is not restricted to real estate data, but caninclude a variety of demographic data including median household age,household income, race and other characteristics which can be determinedon a group or individual level.

Private data can also be amassed and can include specific viewing habitsor purchase records of the subscriber 126. Alternatively, the subscriber126 may complete questionnaires and forms that indicate lifestyle,product preference and previous purchases. All of the available privateand public information is used by the subscriber characterization module108 for characterizing one or more subscribers 126. The subscribercharacteristics may be based upon some known features. For example, itis known that the Nielsen data tracks the number of households watchingparticular television programming. In accordance with the principles ofthe present invention, such information may be used to characterize oneor more characteristics of the subscribers 126.

The ad characterization module 102 has an advertiser interface, e.g., aWeb (browser) interface, that allows advertisers 120 to enter parameterswhich characterize their ad and are used to form ad characterizationvectors. The advertisers 120 may manually create ad characterizationvectors by entering useful information via the browser interface. Inthis case, the ad characterization vector contains a simpledeterministic value (0 and 1) for each category. Alternatively, thevectors may contain probabilistic distributions and may allowadvertisers 120 to develop more complex models for the target market.

Furthermore, the ad characterization module 102 supports entry of theone or more parameters that are used by advertisers 120 to target the adand create advertisement vectors. The choices for these parameters maybe presented as pull down selections in a browser utilizing a graphicaluser interface (GUI). For example, categories such as ad duration,minimum ad bandwidth, household income, household size, median householdage, and ethnic group may be used.

The subavail generation module 106 permits an operator 124 or avideo-programming manager the ability to list and organize theparticular avails in a programming stream as well as create one or moresubavails based on each avail. The subavail generation module 106comprises an interface that may be used for the manual entry of data, ormay be used for the collection of avail data from network or othercontent related databases. The avail data may be used for the formationof one or more avail characterization vectors. These availcharacterization vectors may be correlated with the ad characterizationvectors to determine how avails should be divided into subavails. One ormore heuristic rules may be defined for the generation of subavails.These heuristic rules may be expressed in terms of logical rules as wellas conditional probabilities.

For example, the subavail generation module 106 may have a GUI and theoperator 124 may be presented with several categories such asprogramming opportunity, avail duration, initial bandwidth, initialschedule broadcast time, local preemption authorized, household income,household size, median household age, and ethnic group.

The subscriber characterization module 108 provides the operator 124with the ability to characterize the subscriber 126 (in SDV mode) or tocharacterize the node (in non-SDV mode). In a non-SDV mode, the operator124 is presented with a node demographics interface that allows theoperator 124 to manually program the node characteristics usingpull-down menus, or to import the data from a file. The nodecharacteristics are determined from information manually collected bythe operator 124, or assembled using agents that collect the informationfrom publicly available sources.

In the non-SDV mode, the node demographics interface presents both aninput screen and a node characteristics screen; wherein the nodecharacteristics screen further includes a graphical representation ofthe node demographics. Generally, a browser-based interface allows theoperator 124 to analyze the input characteristics, and to characterizethe node. The characteristics that are input and displayed includehousehold income, household size, median household age, and ethnicgroup.

The browser-based interface also permits the subscriber characterizationmodule 108 to fill in probabilistic values for each of the parameters. Apull down menu may be utilized with increments of 0.1, and anormalization error message may be generated if the operator 124generates a series of values which, when summed, exceeds 1.0. If theoperator 124 enters values that do not sum to 1.0, another normalizationerror message may be generated and displayed. For example, if theoperator 124 characterizes the node as having equal probability of thehousehold income being in any one of the ranges shown above, the valuethat must be entered in each category is 0.2.

In SDV mode, the operator 124 is presented with a subscriber informationinterface. By utilizing this interface, the system is capable ofretrieving (based on a unique subscriber ID) demographic and productpreference characteristics for each subscriber/household 126. Generally,to protect privacy, the subscriber's 126 private information is not usedin the subscriber ID, therefore the subscriber 126 is not identifiableby the ID. The demographic and product preference characteristics may bestored locally or may be stored in one or more network databasesconfigured to directly communicate with the AMS 100.

Information for a limited number of subscribers 126 may be stored andmay be retrievable and displayable on the interface. The principalcharacteristics of the displayed subscriber information includehousehold income, household size, median household age, and ethnicgroup. The subscriber characteristics may be determined in a pluralityof ways including, utilizing the previously described public and privatedata.

The subavail aggregation module 112 gathers information about subavailsand aggregates different subavails to generate one or more groups ofsubavails. The subavails may be aggregated by different methodologies.Some of these methodologies are described with reference to FIG. 2 andFIG. 3. The subavail generation module 106 directly communicates withthe network operator 124 wherein the network operator 124 transmitsinstructions and sets the parameters that may be used to group one ormore subavails.

The correlation module 110 correlates the ad characterizationinformation with the subscriber/node characterization information toproduce a demographic correlation, and also correlates the adcharacterization information with the subavails information to producean avail correlation. Generally, the correlation is computed between thead and the groups of subavails. The correlation may be computed forindividual subavails, but it is not recommended, as it can becumbersome. Taking the dot product of the ad characterization vectorwith the subscriber/node characterization vector generally performs thecorrelation. Different correlation values are normalized such that theresulting correlation value is normalized to 1.0, with a value of 1.0indicating that the maximum correlation has been obtained.

The correlation values may be calculated for each ad characterizationvector and the corresponding subscriber/node characterization vector, aswell as for each ad characterization vector and one or more groups ofsubavails. In one implementation, multiplying corresponding elements ofthe vector and summing the result (dot product) generates thecorrelations.

The avail sales/auctioning module 114 utilizes information regarding thesubavails in conjunction with the results of the correlation to matchads with one or more groups of subavails and to complete thetransaction. Generally, the avail sales/auctioning module 114 collectsinformation about all subavail groups matching the basic time durationand bandwidth characteristics, along with the program they are presentlylinked to, and the combined correlation between the ad and the availlisted. The avail sales/auctioning module 114 also calculates theplacement of the ads based on the degree of correlation and a pricingscheme. For example, a simple pricing scheme is utilized in which theprice for the placement of the ad within an addressable unit dependslinearly on the correlation. Also, the degree of correlation may be usedto offer discounts to the advertisers 120, e.g., a correlation of 0.9results in a 0% discount, and a correlation of 0.2 results in a 30%discount of the listed price. The advertiser 120 has no requirement tobuy all the nodes that match a target correlation. The system maygenerate alternate sized groupings for different prices.

Once a grouping of addressable units, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, aregenerated, the system will correlate the grouping on the avail inventory(time of day and channel). The system may take the correlation data andoptimize the choice of channel, etc. with the addressable unitselection. For example, there exists nodes that have a highconcentration of a specific subscriber demographic that an advertiser120 is targeting and there exists programs that the targeted subscriber126 is more likely to watch. The price of the group of addressable unitswould change in respect to the group size of available (or designated)households and with the available inventory of addressable units.

The pricing scheme may further be utilized for the sale of avails in theform of addressable units by ranking the correlations of the avails andthe ads in decreasing order as a function of the degree of correlation.When multiple ads are used with an avail, the ad with the highestcorrelation (and its corresponding price) is selected for placement inthe avail. If multiple ads indicate the same degree of correlation, thefirst ad in the list is selected for placement in the avail.Furthermore, the revenues may be optimized by announcing avails to morethan one advertiser 120, or by auctioning available avails to variousadvertisers 120 or ad sources.

FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of the invention, in which the availsections are aggregated across channels to form one or more groupedcross-network subavails 200. As illustrated in FIG. 2, an avail 210 maybe divided into a plurality of addressable units (subavails) 220 witheach subavail 220 being directed at a particular target audience(group). In this embodiment, the subavail aggregation module 112 mayaggregate different subavails 220 to create a grouped cross-networksubavail 200 that may be targeted at a subscriber or a group ofsubscribers. For example, the correlation module may match each subavail220 to the appropriate target group created by the AMS 100. It is to benoted that the grouped cross-network subavails 200 comprises one or moresubavails 210 that span across a plurality of channels. Thus, thesubavails 210 are aggregated across the various channels to form agrouped cross-network subavail 200. The advantage of the groupedcross-network subavail 200 is that it allows the advertiser 120 to reachthe same number of subscribers 126 as by purchasing a group of avails210, but with targeting a specific subscriber or a specific group ofsubscribers, wherein prior art, the advertiser 120 must purchase asingle avail 210. The present invention is also advantageous as theadvertiser 120 can make a single purchase rather than having to buy anumber of (subavails) addressable units 220. For exemplary purposes, inFIG. 2, three different channels labeled as channel #1, channel #2, andchannel #3 are shown, each channel having three avails 210. The avails210 corresponding to channel #1 and shown as avail A1, avail B1, availC1, and the avails 210 corresponding to channel #2 and channel #3 areshown to have avail A2, avail B2, avail C2 and avail A3, avail B3, availC3 respectively. A group of cross-networked subavails 200 is formed bycombining a subavail 220 of avail B1 from channel#1, avail B2, fromchannel#2 and avail B3 from channel#3.

FIG. 3 illustrates an alternate embodiment of the invention, in whichone or more groups of time sequence subavails 300 are formed by takingaddressable units (subavails) 320 over a period of time on a singlechannel 303. In this embodiment, one or more avails 310 are sectionedinto a plurality of subavails 320. One or more groups of subavails 320are formed by gathering sections of different avails 310 belonging tothe same channel. As in the previous embodiment, one or more groups oftime sequence subavails 300 can be readily sold because it allows theadvertiser 120 to reach a suitable number of subscribers 126 and allowsfor the purchase of a single target group. For example, a group of timesequence subavails 300 rather than the purchase of many small subavails320. For exemplary purposes, a group of time sequence subavails 300 isformed by combining a subavail 320 from each avail 310 available in atime sequence, each avail 310 corresponding to the same channel.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary case wherein the AMS 100 announces theopportunities relating to groups of subavails to various advertisers/adsources 120. This announcement may be made via the Internet. Theadvertisers/ad sources 120 receive the announcement and respond with oneor more ad characteristics that include information regarding theproduct/service advertised, the target market characteristics, thetarget programs, the addressable unit (subavail), the duration of thead, and the minimum bandwidth required to transmit the ad.

Based on the received ad characteristics, the AMS 100 determines thecharacteristics of available addressable units (subavails) within theavail, including an estimated or exact number of subscribers. The AMS100 may report a real-time report on the viewing audience (i.e., thenumber of subscribers at a time). In cable networks, the number ofactive subscribers (viewers) can be reported back to the AMS 100 (inreal-time) by the use of a return path data modem in a set-top box(STB). In a SDV system, such as those based on various DigitalSubscriber Line (xDSL), Fiber-To-The-Curb (FTTC), and Fiber-To-The-Home(FTTH) transmission technologies, the selection of the video programmingoccurs at the central office (CO), and it is possible for the system todetermine the number of active viewers (subscribers) 126 of a program atany given moment. In an alternate implementation, the exact number ofsubscribers 126 is not determined and statistical information such asNielsen data is reported to the advertisers 120.

Once information regarding the advertising opportunities (avails) hasbeen transmitted to the advertiser 120, the advertisers 120 may submitappropriate bid/bids for the ad. The AMS 100 receives the bids, andafter evaluation either accepts the bids or declines the bids. Multiplerounds of bidding may be utilized to insure that the AMS 100 receivesthe highest price for the ad.

Once the bidding process is complete, the AMS 100 transmits anacceptance notification to the requesting, advertiser 120. Theadvertiser 120 then transmits the actual contents of the ad. Thecontents are then placed in a suitable format and sent to an adinsertion module 400 for insertion into the actual program streams inthe appropriate set of addressable units (subavails). The ad may bemultiplexed in a program stream (synchronously and asynchronously), ormay be carried as an in-band, and/or out-of-band ad channel.

Once the ad has been inserted in a program stream in the appropriate setof subavails by the ad insertion module 400, the ad is transmitted tothe subscriber 126 along with the actual program stream for viewing.Once the ad has been transmitted, the associated charges are billed tothe advertiser 120 who in turn submits payment. A billing module may beadded to handle the charges and the payments. In one embodiment, thecharges and payments are transmitted electronically over the Internet.In an alternate embodiment, traditional methods of notification andpayment (e.g., notification of charges via invoices and payment viacheck) may be used.

In a preferred embodiment, the AMS 100 is implemented on server-basedtechnology. As an example, processors provided by the Intel Corporationunder the trademark PENTIUM can be used in single or multiple processorconfigurations. The operating system offered by Microsoft Corporationunder the trademark WINDOWS NT SERVER can be used as the basis for theplatform. The AMS 100 can be realized in a software means in a number ofprogramming languages, including but not limited to, Java, C and C++. Inone embodiment the portions of the system which interface to theInternet are based on Java and Java scripts. The communications withadvertisers 120 can take place by executing one or more Java scriptswhich exchange information between the AMS 100 and the advertisers 120.The operations of the unit may also be realized in C language.

At the subscriber 126 side, the programming and the target ads arereceived by a television, a STB, or a personal computer (PC) thatdecodes the multiplexed video programming, and displays it on atelevision or a monitor. The STB can be based on a cable televisionreceiver including a microprocessor, and an MPEG video decompressiondevice.

The system may also be configured to have the ability to utilize actualviewership information. In SDV systems, this information is readilyavailable from the switching system (Broadband Digital Terminal) whichis typically located in the telephone CO, but which may also be locatedin the field. In traditional cable systems, the viewership informationmay be collected in the television STB by monitoring the channel towhich the subscriber 126 is tuned. This information is subsequentlytransmitted to the head end (HE) to provide the actual viewershipinformation as opposed to the expected viewership. The data channel asspecified in the Data Over (Table System Interface Specification(DOCSIS) can be used to transmit the viewership information to the HE orother location.

In another implementation, the AMS 100 is modified to add an ability tocapture particular ads and to store those ads for later display.Generally, the ability to access ad databases is external to the AMS 100and is maintained by the advertisers 120 themselves. These databasescontain ad characterization vectors in standardized formats. However, inthis implementation, an ability to extract avail information from MPEGvideo streams to determine avail parameters is added within the AMS 100.In this implementation, the ability to deliver ads in concentratedinsertion systems and the ability to capture ads in real-time at adinsertion modules 400 is also included within the AMS 100.

Yet in one more implementation, the ability to selectively capture adsin each server, based on node/subscriber demographics or otherArtificial Intelligence (AI) criteria is also added. In thisimplementation, the ads are automatically captured at a local server,and are presented for subsequent auctioning. One set of criteria thatcan be used is the correlation between the ad (based on an adcharacterization vector, possibly transmitted with the ad) and thenode/subscriber demographics. For example, the ads that are targeted forhigh-income households may be stored on local servers located in HEsserving high-income areas.

The system as described in various ways may be represented and modeledusing primarily the Unified Modified Language (UML) which is well knownto those of ordinary skill in the art. The UML and other diagramstogether with the accompanying text can be used to implement the AMS100.

Although the embodiments described herein enable one of ordinary skillin the art to implement (i.e. build) the AMS 100, it in no way restrictsthe method of implementation, the AMS 100 being capable of beingimplemented on a variety of hardware/software platforms with a varietyof development languages, databases, communication protocols andframeworks as will be evident to those of ordinary skill in the art.Furthermore, the design represents only one set of business objects(classes) which can be coordinated to carry out the functionality andrequirements of the AMS 100. Other designs comprising other sets ofbusiness classes and their coordinations could be constructed that alsorepresent and conform to the requirements of the AMS 100, as will beevident to those of ordinary skill in the art.

Although this invention has been illustrated by reference to specificembodiments, it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the artthat various changes and modifications may be made which clearly fallwithin the scope of the invention. The invention is intended to beprotected broadly within the spirit and scope

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for managing advertisement opportunitiesin a network environment, the method comprising: retrievingadvertisement parameters supplied by an advertiser; dividing a programstream into a plurality of program sub-streams; dividing avails that arepositioned within the program stream into a plurality of sub-avails thateach correspond to one or more program sub-streams; retrievingsubscriber characteristics related to viewers of the at least oneprogram sub-stream; and correlating the advertisement parameters withthe subscriber characteristics to determine which sub-avail is theoptimum sub-avail to schedule a particular advertisement to display. 2.The method of claim 1, further comprising: selling the one or moresub-avails to one or more prospective advertisers.
 3. The method ofclaim 2, further comprising: receiving one or more bids for one or moresub-avails; and selling the one or more sub-avails to the highestbidder.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: grouping one ormore sub-avails by the advertisement parameters; and correlating thesubscriber characteristics to the groups of sub-avails.
 5. The method ofclaim 4, further comprising: determining pricing for the groups ofsub-avails based on the correlation.
 6. The method of claim 5, furthercomprising: selling the groups of sub-avails based on the determinedpricing.
 7. The method of claim 4, further comprising: transmitting thecorrelation results to one or more prospective advertisers; receivingone or more bids for each group of sub-avails; and selling the group ofsub-avails to the highest bidder.
 8. The method of claim 4, wherein thesub-avails are grouped by combining the plurality of sub-avails acrossdifferent program sub-streams.
 9. The method of claim 4, wherein thesub-avails are grouped by combining a plurality of time-sequencedsub-avails.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein the sub-avails aregathered from the same programming stream.
 11. A method for managingadvertisement opportunities in a network environment, the methodcomprising: retrieving advertisement parameters supplied by anadvertiser and stored at the head-end; dividing a program stream into aplurality of program sub-streams, at the head-end; dividing avails thatare positioned within the program stream into a plurality of sub-availsthat each correspond to one or more program sub-streams, at thehead-end; retrieving subscriber characteristics related to viewers ofthe at least one program sub-stream stored at the head-end; andcorrelating the advertisement parameters with the subscribercharacteristics to determine which sub-avail is the optimum sub-avail toschedule a particular advertisement to display.
 12. The method of claim11, further comprising: selling the one or more sub-avails to one ormore prospective advertisers.
 13. The method of claim 12, furthercomprising: receiving one or more bids for one or more sub-avails; andselling the one or more sub-avails to the highest bidder.
 14. The methodof claim 11, further comprising: grouping one or more sub-avails by theadvertisement parameters; and correlating the subscriber characteristicsto the groups of sub-avails.
 15. The method of claim 14, furthercomprising: determining pricing for the groups of sub-avails based onthe correlation.
 16. The method of claim 15, further comprising: sellingthe groups of sub-avails based on the determined pricing.
 17. The methodof claim 14, further comprising: transmitting the correlation results toone or more prospective advertisers; receiving one or more bids for eachgroup of sub-avails; and selling the group of sub-avails to the highestbidder.
 18. The method of claim 14, wherein the sub-avails are groupedby combining the plurality of sub-avails across different programsub-streams.
 19. The method of claim 14, wherein the sub-avails aregrouped by combining a plurality of time-sequenced sub-avails.
 20. In atelevision network environment, the television network environment beinga cable-based system, a satellite-based system or a switched digitalvideo system, an advertisement management system for managing avails,the system comprising: a computer server for storing and communicatingadvertisement parameters supplied by an advertiser; avail opportunitiesmodule for dividing a program stream into a plurality of programsub-streams and dividing avails that are positioned within the programstream into a plurality of sub-avails that each correspond to one ormore program sub-streams an avail recognition module for recognizingadvertising opportunities; and a subavail selection module forretrieving subscriber characteristics related to viewers of the at leastone program sub-stream and correlating the advertisement parameters withthe subscriber characteristics to determine which sub-avail is theoptimum sub-avail to schedule a particular advertisement to display.